Survey

The data depicted in this paper have resulted from a survey regarding the knowledge, interest, and concern of individuals for biodiversity; with a focus on taxonomy, the science that deals with the observation, description and classification of species on earth. The study was part of the in-company project of two MBA candidates from Universidad Pompeu Fabra (UPF) in Barcelona in cooperation with the “Connecting with Living Species” initiative of the Foundation for a New Ethical Business. The survey data was collected in April 2009 in the experimental laboratory (LEEX) of UPF.

Interpretation and lessons learned

From the survey, the following results were extracted:

There is a high belief that there is climate change and that species are going extinct.

When asked to which specific causes people would be willing to donate money, they said they would chose to do so most likely for issues related to children, humanitarian aid, and health. Nature & Environment as a cause for donations was ranked slightly lower as the previously mentioned causes. Hence, the results suggest that people’s willingness to donate for environmental issues can be increased when they are clearly related to the saving of lives (e.g., through discoveries of new medicine) or the fight of climate change.

People rated the improvement of human health and the protection of endangered species as and their habitat as most important issues to justify research on species, followed by climate change.

Participants stated that they find very interesting how endangered species are and how they are affected by human action. They are also interested in where species live and how they interact.

Regarding people’s awareness in initiatives or NGO’s related to species; it seems that Greenpeace is one of the most well known, followed by WWF.

In relation to web applications related to species, most of the people were interested to have a tool with which they would be able to find species in certain locations.